Burnout Paradise DLC, what could have been

“The first Volume of Secrets” as Burnout Paradise developer Criterion is calling it, has been revealed to the rest of the world. In a recent blog post on the official website, binned DLC packages were thrown forward and meant as a fun-fact holiday gift from Criterion. Which it actually was once you hear how far out there they were prepared to go.

With Big Surf Island out, we can already see how Criterion wanted to be different. Why release a few more cars or bikes, when you can get an entire island instead, right? But considering the discussions around the business table, Big Surf turned out to be just a mere fraction of what could’ve been. In fact, if sanity hadn’t hit the developers, we could’ve been treated with an entire archipelago, each one destined to provide us with a completely different experience such as off-road and even circuit-based racing à la Formula One. “One was going to be purely off-road based. Hence we created the ‘Dust Storm’ dune buggy in anticipation for that. Our original dreams for Paradise were to create a series of Islands, all connected to Paradise City and each would focus on a different style of racing game. One Island was going to be completely circuit based – and be all marked up like a modern Formula One circuit!”

But some of the more wackier ideas included underground racing, planes, helicopters, boats, and I kid you not, Time Travel and even the Moon. “Someone on the team said that ‘players want the moon on a stick when it comes to DLC’ We thought that was funny and thought we’d do it. The actual surface of the real Moon was modelled and it was drive-able. Lunar Challenges would have been totally unexpected – as would have been zero gravity Takedowns and Challenges.” Here’s to taking things literally!

This just goes to show the mentality behind the Burnout series and the widespread thinking from the devs, clearly being outside the box. Whatever Criterion might work with in the future, like for instance the next installment in the Need for Speed franchise, expect the unexpected.

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